Best States for Financial Risk Specialists: New York Leads, High-Pay New Hampshire Still Ranks Lower

Across the evidence, the top 10 states for financial risk specialists show substantial variation in salary levels, employment size, and overall Geography Scores. Some states, such as New York, stand out for combining a comparatively large employment count with a leading Geography Score. Others, like New Hampshire, pair very high salaries with smaller reported employment bases. These patterns illustrate that the highest salary does not always correspond to the highest LaborCove ranking, and that employment size and ranking also do not always move together. At the national level, the occupation’s median pay and projected employment growth provide additional context, but the state‑level data show that local markets can vary significantly on the specific salary and employment measures LaborCove reports.

LaborCove’s national data for financial risk specialists provide the baseline for interpreting the state rankings. Nationally, the median annual salary for this occupation is $117,330, with 63,850 people employed. The occupation has a projected national employment growth rate of 6.5%, which applies to financial risk specialists across the entire country, not to any specific state. These national figures offer a reference point when examining state‑level salaries and employment counts. For example, several of the top‑ranked states have median salaries that are above the national median, while others fall below it despite still ranking in the national top 10 on LaborCove’s Geography Score.

The top 10 state rankings for financial risk specialists are based on LaborCove’s Geography Score, which summarizes multiple underlying labor‑market indicators. New York holds the #1 rank with a Geography Score of 78.87, the highest among the listed states. California ranks #2 with a Geography Score of 61.45, followed closely by Maine at #3 with 60.72. Further down the top 10, scores continue to decline: New Hampshire is #4 at 53.85, New Jersey is #5 at 51.72, and North Carolina is #6 at 51.18. Massachusetts, Texas, Virginia, and Delaware round out the top 10 with scores between 50.13 and 45.23. These values show that even within the top 10, Geography Scores vary substantially. New York’s score is notably higher than the other states, while Delaware’s score is lower than every other state in this group. The ordering also demonstrates that a state’s rank is determined by its Geography Score, not by salary or employment in isolation.

Median salaries for financial risk specialists differ considerably among LaborCove’s top‑ranked states, and the rankings make clear that the highest pay is not always associated with the #1 position. New Hampshire has the highest reported median salary in the top 10 at $158,320, yet it ranks #4 with a Geography Score of 53.85. Maine’s median salary is $141,020 and Delaware’s is $139,440, while New York’s median salary is $136,830. All four of these states have median salaries above the national median of $117,330. California’s median salary is $129,110, New Jersey’s is $129,220, Massachusetts stands at $130,400, North Carolina at $132,040, and Virginia at $126,510; each of these values is also above the national median. By contrast, Texas, ranked #8, has a median salary of $103,760, which is below the national median. This spread illustrates that LaborCove’s Geography Score does not simply mirror salary rankings: New Hampshire’s median salary is higher than New York’s, but New York holds the higher Geography Score and rank in the LaborCove results.

Employment counts for financial risk specialists also vary within the top 10 states, and they do not always move in tandem with salary or Geography Score. New York reports 12,060 employed financial risk specialists, which is both the largest employment count among the top‑ranked states and matches the largest employment market value supplied across all geographies. California, ranked #2, has an employment count of 5,740, meaning New York’s employment is more than double California’s in absolute terms. Texas, at rank #8, has 4,780 employed financial risk specialists, which is a smaller employment count than California but larger than those reported for New Jersey (2,760), North Carolina (3,200), Massachusetts (1,440), Virginia (1,770), and Delaware (1,160). New Hampshire’s reported employment count is 300, which is lower than all other top‑10 states with supplied employment data. Maine appears in the top 10 but does not have a supplied employment figure, so no employment comparison involving Maine can be made from the evidence.

Taken together, the LaborCove data show that top‑ranked states for financial risk specialists differ along multiple dimensions. Some states, such as New York and California, combine relatively high Geography Scores with comparatively larger employment counts. Others, like New Hampshire and Delaware, show very high median salaries while ranking below New York and California in the Geography Score ordering. The presence of Texas in the top 10, with its median salary of $103,760 below the national median, also highlights that a strong Geography Score is not limited to states with the very highest pay. At the same time, New York illustrates that a state can pair the highest Geography Score in this group with a median salary that is high but not the single highest among the top 10. For career planning, these findings suggest that LaborCove’s Geography Score consolidates several observable factors into a single ranking, but the underlying salary and employment figures remain important for understanding how each state differs. Workers can use these state‑level contrasts, together with the national median salary of $117,330 and national projected growth rate of 6.5%, as structured inputs when weighing where financial risk specialist roles might fit into their broader plans.

LaborCove builds these state rankings for financial risk specialists (SOC 13-2054) using authoritative labor‑market data combined with the proprietary LaborCove Geography Score. For each state in this article, we use the supplied median annual salary, employment count where available, and Geography Score. The Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) figures for salaries and employment are based on observations with a reference period of May 2025. The report year 2026 reflects when the data are incorporated into LaborCove products and does not change the underlying May 2025 observation period. The national projected employment growth rate cited here is a separate national‑level projection for the occupation. It is not an OEWS observation and is not a forecast for any individual state. Because the internal weighting of metrics inside the LaborCove Geography Score is not supplied, this article does not attribute a state’s rank to any single factor. Instead, it reports and compares the observable values. Rankings and scores should be interpreted as structured inputs to a decision process and weighed alongside an individual’s own priorities, such as preferred industries, personal circumstances, and non‑labor‑market considerations that are outside the scope of this data.